Alexander Nikolaevich Poskrebyshev (; 7 August 1891 – 3 January 1965) was a Soviet politician and a state and Communist Party functionary. A member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union since March 1917, he was chief of the special department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (personal chancellery of Joseph Stalin, 1928–1953).Мой отец Александр Николаевич ПОСКРЕБЫШЕВ. 30 лет со Сталиным. Интервью с Поскрёбышевой Н.А.
Early life
Poskrebyshev was born on 7 August 1891, in the village of Uspenskoe near the city of Vyatka in the Russian Empire, the son of a shoemaker. His mother was Nadezhda Efimovna. He had one brother, Ivan, and two sisters, Olga and Alexandra. He studied to become a medical assistant,Joint Publications Research Service report, 1989. p. 70. graduating in 1918.
Political career
Poskrebyshev was involved at an early stage in the activities of the Communist Party. He was elected secretary of the local division of the Bolshevik party (1917–1918) soon after joining the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks) (RSDLP(b), March 1917). He was a member of the political committee of the Special Turkestan Army (1918–1919), chairman of the regional Military Revolutionary Committee and regional Council of Workers and Peasants Deputies (Zlatoust, 1919–1921) and worked for the Bolshevik party in Ufa (1921–1922).Большие родители. 1 канал Российского телевидения, 2003. Интервью с Поскрёбышевой Н.А. He moved to Moscow in 1922 within the Central Committee of the CPSU and by 1923 he had become Director of the Administrative Bureau of the .
From 1924 on he worked with Stalin, when he was assigned to the Kremlin. He became an administrator in the Secret Section of the Central Committee shortly thereafter, which would later become the Special Section. Between 1924 and 1929 he was a Manager of the office of General Secretary of Central Committee of Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU).
In 1927 Poskrebyshev graduated in Law and Economics from the Department of Administration and Law of Moscow State University.
In May 1929, Poskrebyshev became a Deputy of Ivan Tovstukha, Chief of the Secret Section of the Central Committee of the CPSU. On July 22, 1930, Poskrebyshev was promoted to Chief of the Secret Section. In 1934 the Secret Section was reorganized as the Special Section of the Central Committee, and on March 10, 1934, Poskrebyshev became the Chief of the Special Section.
In 1934, Poskrebyshev was elected a candidate member of the Central Committee at the 17th Congress of the CPSU. At the next two Congresses, he was made a full member.
In 1935 Poskrebyshev became the Director of Administration of the General Secretary of Central Committee of CPSU, replacing Ivan Tovstukha, who died of tuberculosis.Российский Историко-Архивный Журнал - Вестник Архива
On the basis of Stalin's short thesis, Poskrebyshev wrote texts called "the Constitution of Soviet Union" (1936) and "Short course of CPSU history" (1938).[Ермакова Людмила. интервью с Натальей Александровной Поскрёбышевой: Мой отец написал конституцию. Сталинскую, 2000, Москвичка, 3, стр 11]
Since 1938 he was elected as a delegate to the first, and later of the second (1946) and third (1952) Supreme Soviet of the USSR.
He stayed in Moscow, working with Stalin, during the Second World War. Poskrebyshev was involved in the support of the planning of military operations. He prepared documents for the Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam conferences, and participated in their logistical work.
After the Second World War, Poskrebyshev participated in the collective effort to rebuild of the economy of the Soviet Union.
The apex of Poskrebyshev's political career came in 1952, when he was appointed Secretary of the Presidium of the Central Committee, thereby gaining a seat in the Politburo. At the 19th Party Congress that year, Poskrebyshev was a keynote speaker, and he headed the Secretariat of the Congress. However, a few months later Lavrentiy Beria accused Poskrebyshev of losing secret documents, and he was removed from the position by Stalin. Although these documents were later found, Poskrebyshev was not reinstated in this position due to Stalin's death.
He was briefly reinstated after the death of Stalin, but his removal from this position at the end of 1952 essentially marked the end of Poskrebyshev's political career.
Special Section
Poskrebyshev's most notable office was that of Chief of the Secret/Special Section of the Central Committee, to which he was promoted in 1930. The scope of work of the Secret/Special Section of Central Committee of Communist Party was the coordination of the work of Political Bureau (Presidium, Politburo) of Central Committee, Secretariat of Central Committee, Organizational Bureau of Central Committee and Encryption Bureau.
The staff of the Secret/Special Section included Chief of Special Section, Deputy Chief of Special Section and Office manager, Deputies of members of Secretariat of Central Committee with their office administrations, Office Administrations of Political Bureau (Presidium, Politburo) of Central Committee, of Orgburo, Encryption Bureau, Archive, Registration Office. The number of staff members of Secret/Special Section grew during the time and exceeded 100 persons.
The primary work of the Secret/Special Section was management of Communist Party and Soviet Union documents including top secret documents, preparation of documents for Politburo, Secretariat of Central Committee, Orgburo, preparation of resolutions of these Communist Party Units and implementation of these resolutions. For this reason the staff members of Secret/Special Section could be suspected of conspiracy. The job duties and job functions of staff members of Secret/Special Section were also secret even from relations. The leaking of any information related to job duties and/or secret documents was the reason for punishment of staff member of Secret/Special Section without civil trial.
The duties of Secret/Special Section also included the control of conditions for storing of secret documents and their use, investigation of violation management, using and storing of secret documents; in collaboration with GPU and NKVD carrying out investigation of leaking secret information, developing instruction for handling of secret documents, encryption, archiving and others duties related to handling of secret information.
In 1933 the Special Section of Central Committee was assigned to work under directions of Stalin, or Kaganovich when Stalin was not available.
From 1935 Poskrebyshev also acted as the Director of Administration of the General Secretary, succeeding Ivan Tovstukha on his death. In this position, all of Stalin's documents passed through his hands. This was a position of considerable trust and importance. Nicolaevsky believes that Poskrebyshev was given a rubber stamp with which he could affix Stalin's signature to documents.
The Special Section received information from the NKVD and supervised a pyramid of district Special Sections which reported Party information. It was fundamentally responsible for secret communications and security issues within the Party, and was therefore a position of considerable importance.
The importance of Poskrebyshev increased during and following the Second World War, wherein he served an important role as Stalin's organizer and as a point of contact for generals such as Georgy Zhukov.
Purges According to investigations of the Russian opposition group "Memorial", the lists of convicted were not managed by Special Sector of Central Committee.Memorial The "Memorial" Group says that Nikolai Yezhov personally visited all members of the Politburo to get their endorsement of the lists of convicted.
Nikolaevsky suggested that Poskrebyshev had been responsible for "liaison with Stalin and supervising the removal of top figures whom Stalin, for one reason or another, did not want openly arrested", and for "surveillance of the Party Secretariat"; It is not clear what document or reference has been used as source of this allegation, and who Stalin removed using Poskrebyshev and Special Sector of Central Committee. The prosecution of individuals was outside of scope of work duties of Special Sector of Central Committee, unless these persons were members of Special Sector. Even in the latter case, the number of members of Special Sector was limited and the fate of most of them was not known due to secrecy.
These speculations are also in contradiction with history of his second wife and her relations, as well as the evidence of his daughter Natalia. Her mother Bronislava Poskrebysheva was arrested in 1939.Rappaport, p. 210. At this time Poskrebyshev, much like other prominent members of the Communist Party (for example, Vyacheslav Molotov and Mikhail Kalinin) was not able to help his wife. She was accused by Lavrenty Beria of counter-revolutionary liaisons with Leon Trotsky, and was executed in 1941. Such cases are unlikely to have arisen in the case of individuals who were playing a leading role in the conduct of the purges. In contrast, the leading role of Beria in the purges is more evident. The arrest of Poskrebyshev's wife might have allowed him to remove Poskrebyshev from Stalin's inner circle and replace him with an individual controlled by Beria. In this scenario the next step would have been total control of Stalin by Beria.
Poskrebyshev was not an ally of Nikolai Yezhov but some collaborative government business was to be expected due to the membership of Nikolai Yezhov in the Secretariat of the Central Committee. Probably he had garnered the animosity of Beria by spearheading corruption investigations in the Georgian apparatus of the NKVD—then controlled by Beria—in 1938.
The involvement of Poskrebyshev in the prosecution of Party officials was assumed by Parrish based on case of M.P. Mager. "On 6 June 1941, Poskrebyshev wrote a report to the Central Committee indicting M. P. Mager, the Chief of Staff of the Leningrad Military District, who had already been arrested once in 1938."Parrish, p. 39. However, the role of Poskrebyshev in this case is not clear. According to records of commission of Presidium of Central Committee of Communist Partyrecords of commission of Presidium of Central Committee of Communist Party Mager was arrested under resolution of the Ministry of Defense of the USSR, affirmed by Semyon Timoshenko (March 1941). He was accused of military conspiracy against the Soviet Union. On 15 May 1941, he wrote a letter to Stalin with a statement of his innocence. On June 6, 1941, the letter was directed to the attention of Poskrebyshev and most probably delivered to Stalin. However, in spite of this, on 20 July 1941, the Supreme Military Court of USSR did make a decision regarding the Mager case: the death sentence (he was rehabilitated in 1955).
Noticeably, Alexander N. Poskrebyshev did help many artists and scientists of USSR to avoid being purged or executed.
Eradication of cosmopolitanism